Where did your willpower go?

﻿One of my patients is
a young adult who had an incident during childhood that resulted in damage to
his brain. With exercise, diet, an appetite suppressant and mind-body medicine,
he is maintaining a 20-25 lb weight loss for 2-3 years.

But he has regained 20
lbs of a 42 pound weight loss.

We got to talking
recently and he said this, “I need willpower and discipline. But I have a
temper and it takes all my willpower to control my temper. So all I am left
with is discipline to control my eating.”

And then he started
sharing about the event that resulted in the brain damage. He talked about the
doctors, tests, treatments, etc. He shared his understandable frustration. He
is able to recognize that he has some feelings including anger directed at the
event.

Perhaps his
“temper” is nothing more than those unappreciated feelings that get
stirred up when something happens that reminds him how his life was forever
changed. And so, I gave him some space to allow for some of those feelings.
Maybe that will free up some of his willpower that he has used to hold the
feelings inside. Maybe the equation that every pound is a feeling has some
truth to it.

This is another story
that illustrates that we eat over what’s eating us, we face our stuff so we
don’t stuff our face and peace of mind protects from piece of cake. Another
take away from this story is how wisdom may come from the least expected
sources.